Big questions await northern Michigan’s biggest real estate sellers in 2020 and beyond. Has the decade-long sales boom ended? Will the region be protected, inside an economic bubble? Nobody knows, but what is established is that these realtors had record-breaking numbers in 2019. Certainly some familiar names are...

Fifty years ago we first heard the words, “Houston, we've had a problem,” during the Apollo 13 crisis. Many of us are looking at our industries and our world during the COVID-19 pandemic and feeling that same sentiment.
But I also remember another legendary line spoken...

Munson Healthcare Chief Executive Officer Ed Ness is navigating unchartered waters as he steers the nine-hospital system through the COVID-19 pandemic.
“From a health and business prospective, this is something we haven’t experienced before,” he said. “In the short term, the business has dramatically changed.”
But Ness...

The 60 employees at Traverse City-based American Proficiency Institute are battling the coronavirus pandemic on three fronts: lab performance, finding a test and detecting antibodies. The institute's clinical proficiency testing programs are approved by the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), The Joint Commission...

In recent years, consolidation has dramatically altered the healthcare landscape. According to a joint study conducted by Avalere Health and the Physicians Advocacy Institute, hospitals or healthcare systems acquired 8,000 independent medical practices between 2016 and 2018 alone. In the same time span, approximately 14,000...

Some regional companies are shifting gears during the COVID-19 shutdown. Lean operating skills are helping with that shift.
“Lean definitely helps during challenging times like these,” said Richard Wolin, the regional vice president and director of northern lower Michigan operations for the MMTC and the director...

We are confronting a much different business environment than we anticipated at the beginning of 2020. Our local economy was operating at near full capacity and our leading challenge was a tight labor market. The landscape has changed dramatically, as we now confront shuttered businesses...

A common complaint about higher education is that students are not adequately prepared for the workforce. Last fall, Northwestern Michigan College (NMC) decided it needed to up its game for student job application readiness.
That decision led to an alliance with Northwest Michigan Works! (NMW), a...